As far as I can tell, the only people who still defend Paul Pogba are teenage boys who play FIFA more than they watch real football, and Juventus fans who did get to see the Frenchman play quite well. The rest of us have long since twigged that Pogba the Great is an illusion.
Pogba is an avatar, a brand, a hairstyle. He is talked about as a top player only because he is Pogba. He is to football what Kendall Jenner is to modelling. Neymar functions similarly, but he is an effective, world-class player. So Pogba’s vainglorious agent, Mino Raiola, can talk all he wants about Pogba wanting to leave Man Utd (with his client’s blessing, presumably), but it doesn’t matter; Pogba isn’t really a Man Utd player anymore, everyone can see that. The club has moved on from the player, not the other way around. United are simply holding out for a club that might be stupid enough to pay a lot of money for a midfielder who is being kept out of their team by Fred and Scott McTominay. It would be fitting if that club was Juventus (it probably will be), and Juve and United can just pass him back and forth until he retires.
This week, Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher called Pogba “the most overrated player I have ever seen”. Carragher isn’t trying to sting Pogba, or wind him up, I think he genuinely thinks it and can’t believe the nerve of Raiola.
🗣"Get rid, I have been saying this for 12 months, he is the most overrated player I have ever seen in my life"
Jamie Carragher on Paul Pogba's agent saying he wants to leave Manchester United@Carra23 pic.twitter.com/mOOtJC1TVL
— Football Daily (@footballdaily) December 7, 2020
I can’t say I disagree. I tried to think of a more overrated player and came up short. As in, I don’t have a single name to offer. It’s Pogba by a mile. “But he won a World Cup!”, I hear some of you say. So did Kleberson. So did Stephane Guivarc’h. So did Jesus Navas. So did Shkodran Mustafi. Shkrodan. Mustafi. Winning a World Cup is a terrible measure of a player’s true quality. Show me instead three games in a row where Pogba absolutely bossed it for United. Not that much to ask, eh. I’ll wait…